


Weapon Of Choice

by brutumfulmen



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Antagonist Sandalphon, BAMF Crowley, Biblical Themes, Eldritch Entities, Established Relationship, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Mating Bond, Other, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Seraphim Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-07-11 21:27:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19934764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutumfulmen/pseuds/brutumfulmen
Summary: Sandalphon is aimed at Aziraphale, then fired.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Prompt fill for Leah and some wonderful anons.

As humans developed their spears, their catapults, their cannons, and finally their nuclear warheads, so too did Heaven and Hell amass their own arsenal over millennia. Eventually both sides downsized upon realising humanity’s methods could kill both human and supernatural much more efficiently than any of their ideas ever could.

Still, God is nothing if not a traditionalist. Nothing satisfies more than delivering judgment personally to Her. So, countless times throughout history, one angel was sent to enact God’s punishment. Her holy, terrifying will set onto the Earth and upon those She found unworthy of continued existence.

Like a well-aimed cannon, all Heaven had to do was point and fire.

It has been only a year since Aziraphale and Crowley had retired in a rather unorthodox way from their respective posts. 

While neither side has forgotten this, it doesn’t mean they have attempted to do anything about it just yet. A year is nothing to them, they can wait as long as they need to for justice, after all.

...However.

“Gabriel has done his part as far as I am concerned,” Michael declared coolly, looking down at the map below her, small armament figures of white and black across the map of what appeared to be the universe. If Uriel looked closely, they would have considered the whole setup akin to a human war game. Odd. “He has a weakness that the other non-combatant angels suffer from and between him and Raphael I cannot tell who is more useless to the Great Plan,” Michael stops her talk to make note of a movement across the map.

Uriel watches Michael’s quill move across a sheet of paper absently. While it is true their brother is a mere proxy in which the rest of the Archangels’ decisions are voiced, calling his retreat from Aziraphale’s punishment a weakness could be considered an _extreme_ approach.

Saying this to the Archangel that felled Lucifer from Heaven would not be wise, Uriel admits to themselves.

“You gave him a chance to lead, but perhaps he is best left delivering the Good Word,” is all Uriel drones, circling around to the other side of the desk where Michael stands, trying to see the Great Plan from the holy commander’s perspective.

“Obviously so. If Great War commenced as it had been supposed to, perhaps that fool might have proven himself useful for once,” Michael hissed, clenching her fists hard enough to send sparks across the desk. Uriel only blinks, resisting the urge to shiver in the presence of the Archangel’s anger.

Instead they glance back to the desk, nonplussed as the pieces sprawled across Michael’s battle map begin to shift on their own. “He couldn’t even smite a _lowly_ principality,” Michael continues, eyes going distant, sparks intensifying enough to make Uriel step back.

“That was to be a smite? God has not authorised a smite in several millennia,” Uriel says slowly, watching the other Archangel. At once the sparks from Michael’s hands stop, and she glances to Uriel briefly, then back to her map.

“Correct, Uriel,” Michael rests a hand against her forehead. “A smite would need to be carried by those ordained to do so, after all...”

A silence falls.

Something in Uriel tells them that Michael is about to order their dismissal. Before this happens, Uriel pulls away and begins to make their way to the door.

“...Send in Sandalphon, would you, Uriel?” Michael whispers, just loud enough for the other Archangel to hear, and this time Uriel cannot suppress the shiver down their spine.

From her desk, Michael waves a hand over the centre of the map, a white lightning bolt shaped piece materialising. She grins as the other pieces begin to retreat.

Aziraphale woke to sunlight on his face, but the real warmth was pressed along his back, wrapping him in the most comfortable embrace. He buries his smile in the pillow, knowing that even if they exist for an eternity he’ll never get tired of this, this sensation of being so _loved_.

“Good morning, angel,” Crowley shifts behind him, sleep thick voice making the words elongate on his serpentine tongue. Aziraphale rubs the drowsiness from his eyes, feigning annoyance with Crowley until the demon grunts, wrapping his arms tighter around the plush curves of his mate.

The angel stretches in Crowley’s embrace, not bothering to avoid wriggling against the lithe demon’s form and smiling at the hum of pleasure he hears behind him.

“Do you have any objections to staying in bed a little longer before breakfast?” Crowley hisses, a fang catching the lobe of his ear while long hands slide down the front of Aziraphale’s soft body, gripping those inner thighs to spread them making Aziraphale moan, flushing hotly.

“It,” he gasps as Crowley turns him onto his back and pulls himself to hover over Aziraphale. To his surprise the demon already vanished his clothes. A wicked grin stretches Crowley’s face before he steals a kiss, quickly wedging a long leg between thick thighs and pressing them both down into black silk sheets. Aziraphale runs his hands up Crowley’s firm chest, down his sides, anywhere he can touch as Crowley deepens the kiss, catching the angel’s bottom lip between his teeth making Aziraphale buck against him.

Crowley slides his mouth along the side of Aziraphale’s cheek, down to the juncture of his neck, nipping gently while his hand teases the angel’s arousal through the front of his night trousers. Aziraphale writhes under the demon’s attentions and Crowley stops, taking a moment to breathe in the intoxicating, comforting smell that is uniquely Aziraphale.

Crowley growls as it inflames some primal part of him, having Aziraphale in his arms smelling of home and warmth and _mate_.

“It – it _is_ a Sunday, shop’s closed,” Aziraphale tries again, shuddering when Crowley’s hands slip underneath his shirt to grasp warm skin. “So there is no real need to be – _ah_ – hasty.”

Finally given permission, Crowley’s fingers make quick work of the angel’s sleep clothes before running his hands up along those arms to grip Aziraphale’s wrists, stretching them gently above their heads as he undulates between Aziraphale’s thighs.

“Then I will take as much time as I please, angel,” Crowley grins, golden eyes alight with a fire that makes the angel beneath him shiver before he swallows Aziraphale’s moans with another kiss.

Everything is an art if you believe so, Sandalphon has found to be true.

Long ago the Almighty had sung him into existence with what others called the most painful song She has ever emit. Apparently Her reverb shook Heaven’s walls for centuries, the feathers of all the angels trembling upon their wings. From Her pain, it is written, her greatest weapon was created.

If he listened closely, at times, he can even hear Her humming along whenever his lightning struck true, whenever his flames consumed another of Her Children.

His hand flicks the globe a bit quicker, eyes darting across the blue and green impassively. Most of his work has been grown back over, healed by millennia but the earth never truly forgets his fond visits, does it. The Great War would have been a lovely medium for this canvas. The carnage he could have inflicted in the name of the Almighty.

Yes, a finger taps the little island in that familiar northern sea, if you believe everything is an art, then destruction must be as well.

And he is quite the artist.

Crowley does not like the storm clouds gathering overhead.

In the other dimension he can feel his many eyes creaking open, his wings fluttering about in an attempt to blow back the wind lashing at his face. London has storms, but nothing like this, he considers as his eyes drop to the Bentley parked across the street. He had been planning to take Aziraphale out to get more of those pastries he liked from that bakery across town. So much for that.

Aziraphale will never get in the car with him while it’s raining.

“Aziraphale,” he calls from the open door, listening as the angel comes shuffling to the front. At once he winches his occult form back into obscurity, away from the angel’s delicate senses whenever either of them reached into the other dimension. “Looks like our plans are cancelled for the day,” Crowley says, a bit apologetic.

“Oh, dear please shut the door,” Aziraphale comes up beside him though, hand on his arm. “That’s a shame, but we have time once the storm passes.” Crowley hums, and reaches back to drape an arm over Aziraphale’s shoulders, eyes still on the clouds.

 _‘Come, let’s go back and rest.’_ He hears Aziraphale’s touch telling him.

Crowley registers the contact dimly, but doesn’t tear his eyes from the sky turning dark above London. A familiar sense of foreboding is upon them, and he cannot shake the feeling that something has gone terribly wrong.

“Angel,” Aziraphale’s shuffling beside him stops, he knows that tone of voice anywhere. The demon turns to look down at him, face unreadable, eyes obscured by those dark lenses.

“What would you say to a holiday?”

Aziraphale, despite his tendency to feign resistance at Crowley’s ideas on principle, knows when Crowley is imploring the angel for a good reason. The demon undoubtedly was fully aware of the sway he holds over Aziraphale, but not once has it ever been used against him like so many others in Heaven would have tried to do.

Besides, they do need a holiday, he just didn’t have to deliver the suggestion so gravely. ‘ _Such a gloomy demon_ ,’ Aziraphale thought, unable to stop his fond smile as he worked on folding one of his vests to set in the suitcase atop their bed. Crowley had gone out to grab a few items for their trip, but Aziraphale wasn’t quite sure of why the rush to get out of London.

Something in the other dimension ripples through the streets of Soho, powerful enough to make Aziraphale’s celestial form shudder.

“What on earth?” He asks aloud. Without warning the sensation fades, as though a wave had rushed over him, except he never sensed the end of it.

Perhaps a miracle being performed? If so it’s an odd time of day for that, Aziraphale ponders, wondering if any other angels were assigned to this area before deciding it wasn’t his business anymore. They were soundly retired, thank you very much.

He shakes his head and pauses from packing to straighten back up, listening carefully as the sounds of the bookshop shifting reverb through his ears.

“Just the shop settling,” he tells himself slowly, turning to the other side of the bed where Crowley’s bag is set already packed. A smile stretches across his face at the filled bag including only items Crowley had thought Aziraphale might want for the trip, and not a stitch of his own clothing.

_Oh, Crowley._

Humming to himself, Aziraphale packs a few of Crowley’s items into it before tugging the bag’s zipper when a ripple runs up his back.

Downstairs, the bell over the bookshop’s locked door chimes.

Aziraphale does not know when he blacked out, the door chime still ringing through his head, or how he ended up sitting down and his overcoat removed. He comes to with an ache behind his eyes as he blearily recognises the backroom of his shop, cramped and hot and stacked high with books.

His head is hanging to his chest, and the floor around him is decorated with complex white chalk lines, surrounded by an ornate circle border. Aziraphale tries standing only to find his hands cinched painfully to the back of the chair, and a lash of fear flares up his spine.

‘ _What is this?’_ He questions when the force of another being ripples into his space making him gasp for air, his celestial form writhing from the contact.

“Welcome to, principality,” comes a slow, neutral voice.

Aziraphale winces, catching his breath as the pressure retreats. “Who?” He struggles, lifting his head to a sight that makes his mortal heart stop.

“Sandalphon?”

“Humans have come up with interesting means of delivering justice,” Sandalphon begins as he finishes the glyph on the floor, leisurely in his work. He does not bother to look at Aziraphale and it makes the angel’s stomach flood with ice.

“What is the meaning of this!” Aziraphale shouts, ire building. “You know you are not supposed to be here!” To make his point, Aziraphale reaches into his celestial form, casting his Aspect out only to hit an invisible wall making him jerk back, slamming into his mortal body. His eyes widen then drop back to the floor, the markings sharpening in focus.

 _Oh no_ –

The Archangel smiles, gold flaked teeth flashing, wagging a finger at Aziraphale. Suddenly the presence is back, creeping along the walls of the room and into Aziraphale’s field of vision. He groaned as it compressed on him and subdued his celestial form, binding him tightly down to the floor.

 _‘This can’t be happening,’_ Aziraphale thinks, eyes wide, heart pounding in his chest.

“I remember the days of the guillotine, of the iron maiden. During those days I barely had to lift a finger for an entire city God had chosen to be destroyed, its streets flooded with corpses. Of course, now they have missiles, but where’s the personal touch in that...” The Archangel had sounded almost wistful regarding the human most horrific inventions as he circles behind Aziraphale now, hands clapping onto the trembling angel’s shoulders like a vice.

The Archangel’s thumbs run along the sides of Aziraphale’s neck, a mockery of the caresses Crowley gave him just this morning and bile rises in Aziraphale’s throat but he cannot bring himself to speak. They stay like that for a long, agonising moment with Sandalphon humming a low, terrifying melody until he angles his thumbs along the cords of Aziraphale’s neck and _scratches_.

Aziraphale writhes in the Archangel’s unforgiving grip, hot blood oozing down his neck, soaking the pale vest and shirt he was wearing a dark sticky red.

 _‘Crowley loves this shirt on me,’_ his eyes close, not fully believing what is happening, unable to process the searing pain running straight to his head.

“I miss the way they would scatter, beg the Almighty for mercy,” Sandalphon continues calmly, thumbs still running along the gouges in Aziraphale’s resisting neck, smearing blood and tearing through his flesh deeper deeper–

After what seemed like an eternity the thumbs are pried from the grooves they’ve made in Aziraphale’s skin, both hands retreating back to his shaking shoulders and Aziraphale sucks in a breath. The fingers are tapping a jaunty little beat now along the bunched muscles, as if the Archangel is in thought.

Aziraphale is trembling, sweating now, every hair on the back of his neck raises in terror when Sandalphon dips beside his ear.

“Sandalphon,” Aziraphale fights to keep the fear from his voice, eyes going bleary from blood loss. “Whatever this is - what _is_ this? Why are you here-” A click of the Archangel’s tongue and Aziraphale finds himself silenced, now frantically trying to call upon his wings only for them to refuse to answer him.

“I have greatly missed having a hand in divine punishment, you know.” Sandalphon only whispers, squeezing down hard on both of Aziraphale’s shoulders, grinning as the angel struggles against the digging, the grinding of his joints underneath Sandalphon’s relentless grip until–

Aziraphale howls into the gag eyes watering in blinding pain. With a sickening pop his arms go slack from dislocation, and he sags in the chair. Sandalphon moves to face Aziraphale, looking down as the angel’s head lolls against his chest briefly.

The Archangel doesn’t pause, reaching out to jam his hands into Aziraphale’s stomach, working his fingers into the soft skin until they hook on the angel’s ribs and then Sandalphon _yanks_.

 _‘Crowley where are you?!’_ Aziraphale screams into their bond, sobbing when it shatters against the glyph’s barrier.

“Please,” he pleaded into the gag, tears now flowing as his cracked ribs painfully expand against shallow breaths, the blood from his neck spreading all the way down to his stomach.

He’s going to die here, he’s certain of it.

Sandalphon wrenches Aziraphale’s chin up, grinning at the terror he finds in those pale blue eyes, his thumb smears a shock of red along that trembling lip.

Delightful.

“Oh yes,” Sandalphon murmurs, eyes flashing white as he brings the other hand up, fingertips glowing hot. “I have greatly missed the personal touch of this.” Aziraphale can only stare, everything in him now begging.

“Aziraphale!”

Crowley’s voice calls from the bookshop’s front door and Sandalphon halts, shoving Aziraphale back.

 _‘Thank you thank you_ ,’ Aziraphale sobs with relief, now too tired to hold it back even as his chest burns in agony.

The Archangel straightens up, fingers dimming to their natural hue. Crowley calls again, this time questioning and even through his worsening haze Aziraphale can hear the demon’s quickening movements.

“Unfortunate,” Sandalphon says idly, cracking his neck as he lingers in front of Aziraphale. “But I do so enjoy a work in progress.” Without sparing a glance down at Aziraphale, still tied to the chair, Sandalphon takes his fist and slams it down onto Aziraphale’s left knee.

Aziraphale screams at the shattering of bone, nearly whiting out, his wings frantically trying to break from the other dimension but held back by the unyielding, glowing glyph on the floor still. The Archangel tuts, moving his hand to the other knee, and the force of Sandalphon’s blow knocks the chair off balance sending Aziraphale to the ground with a loud thud, slamming his head against hard wood.

Now Crowley definitely heard that.

“ _Aziraphale!”_ Against his temple Crowley’s heavy footsteps vibrated through the wooden floors as he made his way towards the backroom.

Sandalphon hums in displeasure, looking down his nose at the writhing principality, eyes gleaming in a way that makes Aziraphale shudder. With a wave of his hand, Aziraphale feels a vanishing of the glyph off his spirit as it dissolved from the floor and Sandalphon is stepping over the prone angel.

“Another time, then,” is all the Archangel says before dissipating in a flash of white, leaving Aziraphale sobbing on the floor trying to wrangle his hysteria in. Not a moment after Sandalphon vanishes Crowley slams through the door, tearing it right off the hinges and casting his wings about, his demonic presence screaming through the room sending papers fluttering around them.

“Aziraphale where are–!” He gags at the acrid smell of lightning and blood in the air before he spots Aziraphale, eyes bleeding into gold but only seeing red.

 _‘He’s bleeding he’s hurt.’_ Crowley runs over to Aziraphale dropping to the ground over him, hands fluttering as he struggles to find a place safe enough to touch Aziraphale.

“Oh, Aziraphale,” he moans, reaching out only for Aziraphale to flinch away, wheezing in frantic breaths, each limb contorted at painful angles.

“Crow–” Aziraphale mumbles from his gag, face pale, streaked with blood and tears.

“Shh shh, I’m here,” he tries, vanishing the ropes and gag while pulling Aziraphale away from the chair with as much gentleness as he can muster. No matter how careful he moves Aziraphale whimpers, arms twitching as he struggles to get away from Crowley and the pain. Crowley’s eyes dilate in concentration, and he hears the creaking of bones as both of Aziraphale’s arms roll back into their joints. Aziraphale gasps out a sob at the settling of his shoulders but the severe pinch in his face has lightened slightly.

“There we go, see angel? It’s me just me,” Crowley murmurs urgently, eyes taking in every part of Aziraphale’s broken figure. “Let me help you, just a moment.”

Aziraphale has finally stopped resisting, chest heaving from the effort, but Crowley suspects it is only due to exhaustion. He probably can’t even hear me, Crowley realises wildly.

With a thin hand he gently presses his fingertips to Aziraphale’s neck, heart breaking as his mate trembles with fear, eyes squeezing shut. “It’s okay love, I’m not going to hurt you,” Crowley whispers, eyes flashing as his pupils dilate then contract to slivers, energy pouring slowly into the wounds. In his occult form’s eyes he can see each tear in the angel’s perfect skin, and with the patience of a surgeon he stitches the long gouges shut until all that is left is angry red lines along Aziraphale’s neck. It’s all he can do for them now, too much occult energy can overwhelm an angel, especially in such a condition.

Aziraphale’s bleeding has stopped but now they have to get the rest of him healed.

Crowley growls, looking around for an idea. He doesn’t want to miracle Aziraphale in such a condition, not until he knows what happened and why he couldn’t feel the angel’s presence until just a few moments ago. It felt as though Crowley had reached out into their bond and found just silence.

“I’m going to lift you now and bring you upstairs,” He murmurs low to Aziraphale, running a hand through his hair as he holds the angel close. “I will get you up there as fast as I can but I need you to trust me.”

Aziraphale is moaning low, shivering in pain and what the demon thinks is the beginnings of shock, but the angel jerkily nods and Crowley moves quickly. Fanning his midnight wings, he gathers Aziraphale in his arms and shoots out from the backroom towards the stairs on the other side of the shop.

He sets light footsteps upon the stairs, letting his wings carry the majority of their weight so that Aziraphale is not jostled as they ascend. Along the way all Crowley can do is whisper comfort into Aziraphale, not sure what he is saying anymore but knowing they both need to hear it.

Eventually they reach their bedroom and with every ounce of gentleness in his spirit Crowley sets Aziraphale upon the bed, sheets still rumpled from their earlier lovemaking. He miracles several pillows to angle Aziraphale up for ease and immediately the angel’s breathing seems to even out.

Crowley swallows his resolve and tears his eyes from Aziraphale’s exhausted, flushed face. His own hands numb and awkward, he doesn’t even know where to start. So many parts of Aziraphale are hurting but the angel is counting on him.

“Aziraphale,” he whispers with Aziraphale’s eyes focused on him, his celestial form flickering out from the other dimension, wounded and waiting. “I’m going to start now, okay?” He sounds weak even to himself, and Crowley wants to tear the entire physical dimension asunder.

In the silence of their bedroom Crowley set to work, peeling the blood-soaked clothes from Aziraphale, opening the vest and shirt to reveal pale white skin and...

Crowley nearly bites through his tongue at the enormous dark bruises along Aziraphale’s lower ribs. They were definitely broken, at least three on each side. Pouring more energy into his hands, enough to turn them black up to the elbow, he reaches forward and wills the bones to stitch back together one by one. He can’t do anything but set them and will them into staying as the angel’s body naturally tries to heal.

With a snap of his fingers a series of ice packs appeared on the nightstand and Crowley set them carefully along Aziraphale’s chest, closing his eyes at the angel’s relieved sigh. He reached up to stroke Aziraphale’s hair, pressing a kiss to it, before passing a touch over the dark gash on his forehead, closing it to a pale pink.

“We’re almost done, let me take a look at your legs okay?” Crowley pulled away to check Aziraphale’s face. His eyes were beginning to lose focus from stress, but the daze of pain was dulling bit by bit and it was enough to keep Crowley determined.

Crowley vanished the angel’s trousers and hissed at the further bruising, black mottling Aziraphale’s legs from mid-thigh to his shin. Both knees were swollen, perhaps the only thing keeping them in the right position. He reached for one leg, blackened fingers delving past the damaged skin to let him find each shattered bone fragment and torn tendon.

Fixing the complex structures of both knees was slow, and Crowley labored for hours as Aziraphale phased in and out of consciousness. It was almost midnight by the time every injury on Aziraphale was at a point Crowley could be satisfied with.

There was a limit to how much he can pour into a body already at its breaking point, but for now Aziraphale will be safe.

Crowley looked up from his work on Aziraphale’s body to see that Aziraphale had finally succumbed to a lasting sleep. Every dark part of Crowley whispered for him to leave the shop, to track down the source of that lightning scent still lingering in the backroom, to hunt them to the ends of the earth, to storm both Heaven and Hell. 

For now, all he wanted to do is be here for Aziraphale the way he wasn’t earlier.

With a tired snap, Crowley miracled a chair, and dropped himself into it.

At Aziraphale’s side Crowley began his watch, gloomy yellow eyes fixated unblinkingly to the angel’s sleeping form. In the other dimension his wheel of a thousand eyes ticked around him slowly not unlike a clock while Crowley sat patient, waiting for Aziraphale to wake up.


	2. Chapter 2

For all the nights that pass Crowley by in a blink, this has been the longest thus far.

Hours tick by in slow motion for Crowley until at last the first morning light trickles through the windows of their bedroom, beams creeping across the bed to illuminate Aziraphale. Crowley, to his relief, remained in the shadows where the light could not reach, preferring to see Aziraphale as he deserves to be seen. Heaven incarnate.

Throughout the night Crowley managed to get up long enough to change out the ice packs on Aziraphale’s ribs and knees, along with propping his legs up on some miracled pillows without jostling the angel awake. Another miracle snapped and he swapped the rest of Aziraphale’s clothes for one of his ridiculous nightshirts, hopefully much more comfortable for the angel to wake up wearing.

It would allow Crowley easier access to his injuries as well, he reasoned with a palpable bitterness on his tongue.

Every half hour Crowley peeked into the other dimension, checking on Aziraphale’s celestial form. Thankfully this form also appearing to be at rest as well. With his slitpupils blown wide, he could pick out the faintest shudder of distress coming from Aziraphale. A wave running across his glowing light, instinctively trying to protect himself.

It was a terrible look on such a beautiful creature.

He pulls himself from the other dimension back into reality, letting him take in Aziraphale’s sleeping form, tucked neatly under the covers.

While Crowley could not understand why this had happened to Aziraphale, he knows within the darkest recesses of his heart that it had been on purpose. All it took was seeing Aziraphale on the ground, bound to that chair to know that whoever had done this not only enjoyed suffering, but considered it a profession.

Never one to partake in such activities, Crowley nonetheless knows deliberate, calculated torture at a glance. Unlike Aziraphale, who tended to turn his eye from such things, Crowley has seen some of the most horrific events in history - someone should bear witness, after all. 

Indeed Crowley has witnessed, and personally experienced, so much blood and carnage by Hell or humanity, that even all the oceans couldn’t wash his soul clean now.

It was a wonder, at times, how Aziraphale could stand to let Crowley touch him. But he does not question Aziraphale or his continued presence in Her Grace, he will only be grateful for what he has been given over these millennia with his friendship and now his love.

Brushing a curl from the Aziraphale’s brow, Crowley smiles thinly at the soft rise and fall of the angel’s chest. He will hopefully sleep well into the morning.

Crowley miracles an alarm within the bedroom before making his way downstairs, past the disordered shop to the room where it all happened. He pauses only to snap his fingers and set the door back on its hinges, not bothering to fix the deep gouges his other form’s claws made in the wood.

Tasting the air he finds it still crackling with the burn of lightning, poisoned by the sharp tang of Aziraphale’s lingering fear.

With a deep mortal breath, Crowley pulls his occult form from the other dimension, letting his presence expand throughout the room. Stickier than nougat it adheres to everything tangible, even into the vellum of the books Aziraphale loves so.

Occult power works quicker than miracles, harshly reorienting the room to its original state. Each paper and book stacks neatly against the walls, back in order, one less thing to worry about come daylight. He doesn’t bother salvaging the simple chair, reducing it to sawdust with a look. Never again would he have let Aziraphale sit in that chair anyways.

Peeling his presence from the now cleaned room, Crowley is annoyed to note nothing was left behind by whatever had hurt Aziraphale. 

Blood stained the floorboards however, and as he raised his hand to snap it away his eye caught the way it glistened as though fresh. A coagulated mess from where the chair must have originally sat when Aziraphale was being–

Crowley crouches down over the pooling blood, dipping in and pulling away. It shone deep red, sparking with electricity as he rubs it between his forefinger and thumb.

There was something very unusual about this. To leave nothing behind of themselves, yet getting sloppy with the evidence. Had the assailant intended to do more to Aziraphale, and Crowley interrupted the assault? Only Aziraphale would be able to tell him but he desperately needed his rest. Crowley grumbled, wiping his hand on a dark pant leg.

No matter, it won’t do to leave this here regardless. But miracling it away… Aziraphale would always know it was still there underneath, wouldn’t he.

With a sigh, Crowley snapped his fingers to conjure a pair of rubber gloves.

Crowley, even before his Fall, was never one for actionable worship, found the whole business trite if he was honest. Until he met Aziraphale that is, and Crowley now understood why the Song of Solomon was written, why poets waxed prostration before their love.

So here he is, on his hands and knees scrubbing Aziraphale’s blood from the floorboards of the bookshop that he and his very own love call home.

Aziraphale awakens as though pulled from a dream.

A full body pain anchors him to the bed, but he is warm and comfortable as best that can be done for now. There is a soft light coming from the windows, and the scent of antiseptic lingers in the air.

Home, he is home.

Hesitantly, he unfolded his wings in the other dimension, feeling them react to his will as they always should. Their comforting presence poured through him, and he relaxed deeper into the pillows, looking around their bedroom blearily.

Aziraphale’s eyes fall to their luggage set neatly by the door, a tremor runs through his hands.

He wills himself into their bond, and feels it connect to his other half at last. Tears prick the corners of his eyes in relief. There is a feeling deep in his spirit, gaping like a wound, that if he is not careful threatens to overwhelm him with its might. Aziraphale closes his eyes, taking a slow, shuddering breath.

“Crowley, are you there?”

To say he is relieved Aziraphale has woken up would be an understatement, despite the horrendous conditions his mate must awaken to.

Crowley refrains from biting his tongue off, staying silent while he moves around Aziraphale to check his damaged neck, his broken ribs with cool, fluttering touches. So far everything is healing to his reasonable satisfaction.

Collapsing back into his chair, he scowls. Aziraphale refuses to look at him for some reason, but he can nearly guess everything the angel is feeling. He can taste it in the air, a hanging stench of pain and fear and something very unfamiliar that vanished before he could place it.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley tries to keep the tension from his voice, wrangling the temper he usually has a cool hold over. “I need to know what happened.”

Aziraphale’s eyes flicker up before, to his disappointment, turning away. Leaning back with a sigh, Crowley’s tongue flicks out again and he startles when the familiar scent burned through the air again. He can now place it.

Shame.

“Angel,” he immediately jumps from his chair to sit on the bed at Aziraphale’s side, keeping his hands clenched tightly in his lap, mindful of the pain the angel languished in. “You have _nothing_ to be ashamed of.”

_I should be ashamed, for leaving you so._

Aziraphale seemed to breathe out a laugh, then doubles forward in on himself, shoulders shuddering despite the deep ache he must feel. Fat, clear tears fall from his eyes, sliding down his face and refusing to stop.

Panicking Crowley dives towards him, hesitating for a moment as he can’t find where to put his hands on the angel, before gently curving them over Aziraphale’s back.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley pulls his wings from the other dimension, wrapping them in a protective cocoon as his arms come gently around the angel, who takes a deep breath only to begin crying even harder. “I’m so sorry, I’m _so_ sorry.”

What else can he say? He failed the one duty he has, and now Aziraphale has suffered for it in ways he cannot even begin to understand.

The angel moaned low in his throat, borne from so deep a pain Crowley knew his power could not hope to ease. He sat inhumanly still as Aziraphale dropped his head against Crowley’s shoulder, and sobbed brokenly into the demon’s embrace.

A week passes. Aziraphale won’t look at him, and Crowley is at a loss.

He hovers constantly at Aziraphale’s side, bringing books and tea and when the angel finally admits to hunger, the best cuisine Crowley can make.

Aziraphale doesn’t complain when Crowley feeds it to him, so he likes to believe he has pleased the angel somehow.

They take it a day at a time in the quiet flat above the (closed) bookshop and after a while Crowley feels ready to climb the walls. It is futile though, bringing a horribly wounded Aziraphale outside or worse, leaving him alone, that fear alone pins him to the bookshop. 

He doesn’t leave even to tend to his probably now dead plants, Aziraphale’s terrified grip on their bond almost a stranglehold that Crowley would drink holy water before defying.

On top of all this, Crowley is also getting concerned about Aziraphale’s health. As supernatural beings, wounds they receive should heal at an accelerated rate. Dislocations are trickier since joints were clearly made by someone with rudimentary pride in their work, but surely Aziraphale’s ribs and knees would have picked up the pace by now?

When is the last time he looked up human recovery times? Maybe bones just take longer despite the power he has poured into them all week.

On the eighth day, Crowley found himself once again trudging down the hall with a tray carefully piled high of breakfast items he knew Aziraphale enjoyed. He was about to open the door when a gasp of pain sounded from the other side.

 _No, please._ “Aziraphale!”

Kicking the door open Crowley almost throws the tray, his wings already ripping from his back and filling the bedroom to see only Aziraphale with his nightshirt hiked up and his hands gripping his right thigh just above the damaged knee.

“Crowley, my dear,” Aziraphale chides, tugging his nightshirt back down with a flush on his face. “That’s not necessary.”

Crowley folds his wings, but doesn’t bother to winch them. Might need them after all. Setting the tray on the bedside table he takes a slow breath, willing his heart to stop pounding.

“Yes, it is,” he turns to stare at Aziraphale, daring him, and whatever protest the angel has dies in his throat, looking chagrin.

 _‘None of that now,’_ Crowley thinks, himself now chagrin.

“What’s wrong?” Crowley pulls his chair up close to the bed, propping his elbows on the soft covers. “Is your leg bothering you?”

Aziraphale’s lips tug into a frown, and Crowley sees the fine tension around the angel’s eyes, even as they glance over to the tray with interest. Typical.

Chuckling, he waves a hand between the tray and Aziraphale’s intimate connection. “None of my excellent cooking until you let me take a look.” The angel darts his eyes to Crowley with just the slightest hint of aggravation behind them, until Aziraphale clears his throat. Crowley watches the thick pink wounds along his neck flex with the action.

“It’s - well,” Aziraphale cannot lift his arms just yet, but he manages to find a way to bring his hands together in a fidgeting manner.

Crowley grunts. “Lie back more, angel. When I’m done I’ll be more than happy to let you eat.”

Aziraphale huffs, leaning a bit back as Crowley stands, hovering over to peel back the bedcovers down to his ankles - can’t have the angel’s delicate feet getting cold now can we.

“Are you going to let me feed myself finally?”

Cheeky. “You can barely lift your hands, angel. Last I checked you enjoy being fed by me,” Crowley doesn’t look up as he carefully lifts the night shirt to reveal Aziraphale’s pale legs, interrupted harshly by the grim purple bruising of his injuries. The left knee seems to be faring better. “Or is that only when I have you completely exhausted and ready for my - what do you call it - doting?”

He glances up just in time to see Aziraphale flush quite nicely, and it lifts his spirit a bit to see it’s not from pain.

Alright, _fine_.

“You can have your tea so long as you promise not to drop it all over us.” Crowley grumbles, snatching the mug off the bedside table to set in Aziraphale’s eager hands.

“Careful now,” he says testily, watching with a critical eye while Aziraphale leaned forward and brought the mug to his lips. His pain was not subsiding as fast as he hoped, and probably won’t be lifting it all that much, but it obviously makes the angel feel better about himself and warms his hands.

“You’ve never had to feed me while I’m in such a state,” Aziraphale murmurs, hands now fidgeting with the mug. There are probably many layers to that sentence, and when Crowley stares only for Aziraphale not to meet his gaze, that theory is proven correct.

Tread softly, he warns himself.

“Haven’t had many injuries in the past, Aziraphale,” Crowley reminds gently, focusing his power again, fingers going black. He can see that the tissue around the broken bones, while terribly damaged, was indeed healing and the swelling dropping significantly. Dipping his fingers into the right knee, he slowly manipulates each tendon holding the kneecap and nods in satisfaction as blood flow picks up. Without protest from the angel, he moves to the other knee to repeat the process.

“That… is true.” Aziraphale concedes, taking another sip, voice a tad clearer. “I admit to never even having had a broken bone, for all my years in this corporeal form.”

Aziraphale takes in a breath, but Crowley hears a hitch that sets off internal alarms. “Until now, I suppose.”

Crowley sighs, partially in dread, mostly in relief. Finally, they are going to have this conversation it seems. He slips his hands away, letting them return to their natural hue before righting Aziraphale’s nightshirt and pulling the bed covers back over the angel’s lap at his shy request.

Such a modest creature he loves.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley begins when he sits back down in his chair, watching Aziraphale reluctantly meet his gaze, which seemed to be caught on his fluttering, cautious black wings. “Are you ready to talk about this now?”

Crowley has spent the majority of their friendship, and now their relationship, going at Aziraphale’s sedate pace. It was the right thing to do, after all, and there has never been a rush to letting Aziraphale experience things at his own readiness.

But this is not one area he plans to wait much longer on, not when the angel’s safety might be - no, definitely is - very much in danger.

Doesn’t mean he will not go softly, however.

The angel only flicks his thumbs against the mug’s ceramic wings, breaking their gaze to look out the window. A defensive silence permeates the air, heavy tasting on his serpentine tongue.

Crowley hums low, and tries a different tactic. “How about if I feed you during?”

“No,” Crowley feels himself deflate, then straightens back up as Aziraphale continues. “I don’t want to discuss this over something I love, well, you providing for me.” A blush blossoms over Aziraphale’s pale cheeks.

Unsure what to say, Crowley remains silent.

Aziraphale after a long moment looked back over at him, eyes half-lidded. “Do you remember the whole business with the Archangels?”

Crowley growls, but at Aziraphale’s flinch he halts, sucking in a breath through his teeth. Behave like a normal person right now, Crowley rebukes himself silently.

“Unfortunately.” _Wait._

Then he tenses up, wings at his back fluttering with anger. “Is this Gabriel? Angel–” 

Aziraphale shakes his head, eyes pleading with Crowley to remain calm, and the demon sits back down reaching out to rest a hand on Aziraphale’s ankle.

It is the only place he can touch Aziraphale without causing pain, he realises somberly.

“No, for once it wasn’t Gabriel,” Aziraphale sounds tired, and a bit disgruntled at saying this. “Gabriel, despite his... himself, is not particularly cruel,” Aziraphale continued, frowning at Crowley’s snort, and wonders not for the first time just what happened during their switch.

“He has never raised a hand to me. Doesn’t believe in dirtying his hands so to speak, and he’s never been a soldier. I wasn’t either, not really,” the words trail off in a whisper.

Crowley blinks in surprise, but doesn’t say anything. A conversation for later, he slots it into the back of his mind. Aziraphale slowly takes in a breath, a sheen of sweat along his brow from attempting to control the pain that racks his physical body with every jostle. Snapping his fingers Crowley produces a cool damp cloth, gently swiping it along the angel’s brow, mindful of the pink gash marring his temple. Aziraphale smiles weakly, and takes another breath. Crowley pulls his chair closer, bringing his hand to rest on Aziraphale’s inner thigh, thumb rubbing gentle stripes in the area as he passively dripped power into the area to ease the ache.

“After the Fall,” his eyes dart nervously to Crowley but the demon only nods and something in him relaxes. “After that, yes, well, there was a large reduction in forces. The goal was humanity from that point on but there was an enormous reorganisation in order to make up for lost resources. Many that - er, Fell - had been part of the general assembly meant to wrap up the final touches to Earth and get things started for humanity. However, there were certain _contingencies_ to consider, you understand–”

“Angel,” Crowley interrupts, getting impatient now. “I appreciate the history lesson but I need you to tell me who did this to you?”

Aziraphale’s mouth thins in both pain and frustration and Crowley grits his teeth against a curse, charging ahead. “I know this whole story is important to you.”

“Then _listen_ ,” Aziraphale’s voice wavers, hands in his lap trembling. “It’s, I’m trying to work up the courage to say it.”

Stunned, Crowley dipped his chin, and lifted his hand from Aziraphale’s leg - noting the angel’s distressed noise at the retreat - instead setting it around those shaking hands holding the mug. He takes a breath and watches Aziraphale, now waiting patiently as the angel looked down their joined hands.

“There would be God’s will to enact, along with Her... anger. So, a way to do so needed to be deployed for future use once humanity existed. You understand?”

Crowley only nods.

“He has existed probably long before me, but this is what I was told by others, and from my own experiences with him.”

Aziraphale pauses, gathering himself.

“Never been one to like or dislike others, that was his viewpoint on the rest of us. In fact, he feels nothing towards us, his focus was solely on being pointed in whatever direction God or the other Archangels requested. Once humanity existed, he possessed no hesitation, always ready to smite, or give out a good beating if told to do so.” A weak chuckle comes from Aziraphale.

Crowley felt something in his chest sinking. There was only one angel from legend he knew of that dealt in the business of smiting humanity off the face of the earth.

Aziraphale looked up, and before Crowley could rack his brain for a name he was speaking again.

“His name is Sandalphon.”

There is a pause that hangs the name in the air, and Aziraphale swallows against the tightening in his throat.

“Sandalphon?” Aziraphale watches Crowley’s lips curl over the name and he suppresses a shudder so intense it nearly takes his breath away. “Sodom and Gomorrah? Ghastly business all that. That Archangel?”

Aziraphale nodded, feeling his stomach hollowing, eyes blurring out of focus as he thinks back to that horrible day. He reins in the tremors building in him, willing himself to not collapse in tears like he did earlier this week. There is the press of Crowley up against their bond, cautious as a whisper, but he ignores it.

“I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, that day. You had gone out to, I don’t even know why you went out.”

“Pastries,” Crowley mumbled, sounding distant. “For the drive down. Since you get, as you always put it, ‘peckish’.”

Aziraphale musters a smile at that. Of course, only Crowley.

“I was upstairs, here, actually. Finishing our packing,” he takes a breath, a dull ache throbbing along his ribs. Too much talking, too much breathing but he doesn’t know how to stop. “I felt something, a ripple through the streets as though a miracle had been performed, yet vastly more powerful.”

Crowley remained blessedly silent, but Aziraphale could feel those golden eyes fixated on him.

“I came to in the backroom and,” now he is losing his courage. He wants to buy himself time by taking another sip of his tea, but his hands are limp as he holds the mug, and his shoulders _ache_. His whole body aches yes but the thought of having to endure more pain just to lift it is almost unbearable for his tenuous heart right now.

Suddenly the mug is gently taken from Aziraphale and held to his lips, tipping back for him to drink from, and he could almost cry.

Crowley says nothing, only brushing his lips against Aziraphale’s temple, before setting the mug down on the nightstand. The demon drops back to his chair beside Aziraphale, waiting for him to continue.

Aziraphale closes his eyes, picturing it all again as he has done every second since. “He was there, writing a marking on the floor.”

“Do you remember what kind?” Aziraphale shakes his head, and opens his eyes.

“Unfortunately not, I had never seen one like it before and he erased it when he left.” Something arises in him, the need to defend himself, to make Crowley understand his shameful weakness and why he did not fight back. Not that he could ever match an Archangel anyways but- 

“It was, well whatever he put on the floor kept me from being able to call my wings out. My true form. It was why I couldn’t fight back.”

Crowley only hummed in response, waving a hand.

“Not the angle I was going for, angel, but thanks for the information.” He snaps his fingers to keep the neglected tray of food warm for afterwards. “Concerned is all.”

Oh. Aziraphale glanced down at his hands. Right.

“Well, you know the rest,” Aziraphale concludes, rather deflated and not all too keen on reliving his violent assault in prolific detail. “I suppose it was just another message from Upstairs that they aren’t happy with me. Surely it’s done with?” He tries to smile and finds he cannot even convince himself.

Crowley does not even pretend to smile, his face dark.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley’s tongue elongates the first syllable. “Did he tell you anything? Usually those bastards - er, angels - tell you off before they _do_ something. Was there anything?”

Aziraphale furrows his brow in thought, before looking over to Crowley’s carefully guarded expression. “No, he just said a lot of nonsense, really. The kind I’ve come to expect from those considered to be Heaven’s weapons.”

Crowley only stares at him, and Aziraphale can feel the familiar burn of anxiety twist his stomach.

“Crowley? Why?”

“If they didn’t give you the paperwork so to speak, then this wasn’t a message, Aziraphale,” Crowley’s ageless face seems to carry all his years to Aziraphale’s mute surprise.

Something is creeping into his limbs, so heavy he can’t shake it. Crowley has never looked this serious before, not on the night they traded places, not even on Armageddon itself. “What do you mean?”

“I’m saying, they didn’t have a message for you here on Earth because it was going to be delivered in Heaven,” Crowley swallows, gold bleeding into the whites of his eyes. “They were going to discorporate you right back Upstairs. Most likely deal out their ‘divine judgement’ once you couldn’t escape.”

He can’t breathe all of a sudden, his celestial form writhing in the other dimension as he forces all his emotions deep inside and maybe if he pushes them down hard enough—

“Aziraphale,” cool hands are on him but he can only feel a burning like no other igniting under his skin. “You need to breathe you’ll hurt yourself.”

“I never, how could.” He never realised how fragile his place in this world really was, how quickly it all could have ended if Crowley had not been there. The moment he discorporated he would be back in Heaven, back with them.

They could be coming back for him after this.

A whine rattles from his chest, and there is a pained moan but he doesn’t know who makes it. Crowley dips his head to Aziraphale’s, a balm on his inflamed brow.

“I’m so sorry,” Crowley’s voice breaks along with Aziraphale’s heart.

“Nothing will happen to you again. I swear it.”

“What do you _mean_ you need to return?”

Sandalphon does not move from his place by the globe, eyes darting idly across the numerous, _countless_ , sites in which he made his mark. A few of them even earned him commendations. He has them on display in his office, since that sort of behavior is expected of him.

He glances over to Michael at her desk, blinking slowly. “I was interrupted before I could proceed with-”

“Perhaps if you had refrained from behaving like an animal playing with its meal this would be done with already!” Michael snarls, slamming her fists into the desk, about to say more when she looks up at Sandalphon.

For a brief, paralysing moment, the Archangel looks as though he is about to hit her, before a placid smile stretches across his face.

“All a work in progress, Michael,” he says lightly, and for some reason she wants to tear her name from his mouth.

Scowling, she sets his piece back on the map with more force than necessary.

“Get back down there.”

Aziraphale remains bed bound and riddled with a rising wave of nightmares, but things start to improve. As they usually do.

Crowley limits his occult meddling with the wounds, deciding that the old-fashioned human way will be the best course of action for now.

He has also accepted his plants are dead for the time being, there is no way he is leaving Aziraphale’s side now that he knows some weaponised Archangel is out there on a mission. In the absence of grieving Crowley distracts himself by learning numerous ways he can make things interesting for him around Aziraphale in this confined flat.

How convenient that he finds everything about Aziraphale interesting.

By the end of the second week, in the early morning light, Crowley allows himself to graduate from his chair to lay down beside Aziraphale on their bed and run his hand along the angel’s back. At the soft smile he gets, Crowley knows his mate has been missing a touch that was not of Crowley the caretaker.

He spends that morning watching Aziraphale attempt to feed himself through the endearing, if fumbling combination of leaning forward just enough not to aggravate his ribs while only moving his arms at the elbow. Crowley would have been content to keep feeding Aziraphale but after the tenth day the angel got incredibly flustered over the whole thing for probably some absurd reason. Fussy creature, he thinks with too much fondness, and simply lays there armed with a napkin at the ready.

They mostly chat nowadays while Aziraphale rests, dodging the topic of what happened, even as it hangs like a heavy cloud over them. Normalcy is what Aziraphale is asking of Crowley for now, and he will give his mate anything within his power.

“How is it today?” Crowley asks, swiping a grape from Aziraphale’s plate, poking it on a fang before chewing it.

“I will not praise you every single time you ask,” Aziraphale takes a bite from one of the sausages that Crowley pre-cut before bringing him the meal. “It tastes as wonderfully as all the other times, and you already know this. I am just... pleasantly surprised you know how to cook so much.”

Crowley knows there is an insult in there somewhere, and if not he will pretend there is. “I have made you meals plenty of times.”

Aziraphale hums in thought as he pops a strawberry into his mouth in a way Crowley cannot resist watching. “Yes, but that was only after we, well.” He worries at his lip, slowly spearing another piece of fruit.

Crowley arches an eyebrow.

“You’re telling me you would have been alright with me bringing you your meals in bed before I made my intentions clear?” Aziraphale flushes, his mouth twisting with what is clearly embarrassment while Crowley only grins. He points his fork at Crowley in admonishment.

“Absolutely not, there was-” he swallows. “Propriety to consider, still is.”

Crowley chuckles low, rubbing a small circle at the base of Aziraphale’s spine. “’Course angel. Since that first night, I would never have considered anything other than a multi-millennia long courtship for you.”

Aziraphale huffs softly, a furrow worrying his brow. “What does- I would- I do not expect such a thing from you.”

Oh, but Crowley knows that Aziraphale desperately wants it to be true, the nervous longing in his eyes telling more than any words could. Just a year of this, of Crowley and him like this, would never have been enough for Aziraphale, and neither would it have been for Crowley.

He pushes himself up to sit beside Aziraphale, smoothing the soft blond curls above his ear. “Really now.”

Crowley knew that deep inside of Aziraphale he was a romantic at heart. Not in the sense Crowley was, secretly championing reckless endeavours and so on, instead the angel longed to be cared for and have the effort made for him constantly. It had not been so obvious throughout the ages, Aziraphale keeping this longing, and apparently his rather intense love for Crowley hidden deeply. Crowley had only done his acts out of care for Aziraphale more so than any attempts to woo. 

But after everything between them came out just a year ago, Crowley only had to take a look around the bookshop, piled high with several millennia worth of sentiment, to know he would have one shot to get it right.

Been doing well so far, he likes to believe.

“Being at your side has been nothing but a pleasure all these years,” Crowley murmurs against Aziraphale’s cheek, pressing a kiss when Aziraphale leans into the touch. “However, I have to say this past year has been the best so far, and I look forward to many, many more.” 

Aziraphale is bright red now, ducking his head down at Crowley’s increasingly affectionate kisses. “Agreed, my dear.”

Aziraphale dozes off sometime after lunch, leaving Crowley enough time to head down to the bookshop and play loud games on his phone.

Swinging his feet up on the low table, Crowley taps at the flashing screen with ease for what could not have been more than ten minutes when he feels a ripple flow right through him. A wave that never crests nor retreats.

“What the Hell?” Crowley throws his phone down and jumps up, the ripple cascading through the busy London streets all around him. That was far more powerful than any miracle he has felt Aziraphale perform before. Was there another assigned angel to this city now?

Wait a second, Crowley walks into the front room of the deserted bookshop, tongue flicking out to taste the musty air, a hint of something else there. 

Didn’t Aziraphale mention something like that happening? Before–

_Click._

Crowley slowly turns to face the entrance, watching every miracled lock and binding he has put on the door dissipate like dust.

The door creaks open, its bell chiming sweetly.

“Sorry,” Crowley begins, stepping out from the shadow of a bookshelf. “‘Fraid we’re closed.”

In walks a figure of such immense force, its presence rushing so fast to fill the shop that Crowley feels his occult form writhing in the other dimension, its wheel of eyes beginning to tick.

 _Intruder_ , his instincts warn.

“You must be Sandalphon,” Crowley drawls, hands curling into loose fists, shunting his occult form deeper into obscurity.

Sandalphon, standing in the bookshop taking it all in, does not look as intimidating as the other Archangels from what Crowley recalls of them. Unassuming in feature and stature, Crowley could pass him in a crowd and never think twice about it. The thought alarms him.

He has seen this one before though, he remembers, during Aziraphale’s attempted execution. Crowley at the time paid no mind to the others present as his rage had tunnel visioned to just one particular Archangel, but he knows this face now.

The Archangel looks at him.

“You must be the demon Crowley. I don’t believe we’ve ever met,” Sandalphon’s eyes do not leave Crowley’s and the demon suppresses a shiver at the tranquility he sees. It’s as if there is nothing behind them.

“We met once,” Crowley snipes. “Changed my hair since then, though. Going for a new look, times change and all.”

“Yes, they do.” A press of power Crowley has not felt since he lost his Grace rushes at him. Crowley feels every demonic instinct in him screaming to run from the heavenly might he stands before, how he is a lightning strike from his end. He knows more deeply, however, that Aziraphale is right upstairs, that he is the only thing standing between his mate and destruction. Gritting his teeth, Crowley digs his heels in and weathers it, but as quickly as it happens the pressure is gone leaving Crowley gasping but standing on his feet.

Sandalphon’s brow raises.

“Impressive. And what a surprise, I would have suspected you to have long left the principality,” the Archangel runs a hand along the table stacked high with books. “Typically, demons have one goal when it relates to angels.”

The Archangel taps his fingers on the table, beginning a rhythm Crowley cannot place that echoes through his head. “Your defilement of Aziraphale is not a factor in why I am here, however.”

“Good to hear,” Crowley downright snarls.

“Must not have met many interesting demons though.” He sidles wide around the Archangel, experience driving him to not lose line of sight. “Y’see, I have plenty of goals when it comes to Aziraphale.”

Sandalphon does not smile, nor does he blink.

“Then unlike you, I have come here with only one goal,” he replies in a flat tone.

Crowley drops his centre of gravity, bends at the knees. “You will be just as damned as me before I let you near him.”

The Archangel cracks his neck, shakes out his arms.

“Very well then, let’s make it two.”

He takes a step forward, and raises a hand, rapidly glowing molten white. Time does not slow down but Crowley does not need it to.

Sandalphon might view delivering pain as some form of really sick (and not in the good way) art; to Crowley there’s only one way to fight.

Dirty.

That lightning charged fist comes towards him, and he doesn’t hesitate.

Grounding into the balls of his feet Crowley immediately crowds into the Archangel’s space, slamming the heel of his palm up at Sandalphon’s jaw, taking advantage of his greater height to then smash an elbow right across that now exposed throat. 

A perfect first hit, if he does say so himself.

Sandalphon reels a bit back clutching at his windpipe while Crowley pivots and relentlessly moves in again. At the Archangel’s flinch he yanks on the scruff of his neck and crashes his right knee into the inner thigh as hard as he can. 

With a gasp, Sandalphon buckles only to charge back up swinging his own knee around into Crowley’s femur. He feels the bone resist cracking but just barely. Crowley crumples to a knee with a grunt of pain, hanging onto Sandalphon tight as the Archangel hoists them both back up, shoving Crowley into a wobbling bookshelf.

Sandalphon’s fist then swings into Crowley’s stomach, knocking the wind from him but he doesn’t let go, sinking his nails in deep enough into Sandalphon’s neck to draw blood as his other hand comes around to rain down on the Archangel’s temple.

 _‘Just stay upright just stay up_ – _’_ Crowley screams at himself as Sandalphon repeatedly slams his knee into Crowley’s outer thigh, sending waves of pain up through the bone and pummelling the taut muscle. He ducks, writhing in Sandalphon’s grip quick enough to plant both feet and wind his arm around Sandalphon’s neck, constricting as tightly as this human body can.

Sliding them both down the bookcase, Aziraphale’s precious tomes falling atop their heads, Crowley wrangles Sandalphon into a chokehold.

Immediately Sandalphon ceases hitting him as the threat to his air supply is cut, and soon his hands are clammoring at Crowley’s vice grip.

“Shh shh shh,” Crowley hisses, tasting adrenaline in the air, eyes flooded gold as his body howls in agony from the beating the Archangel is now dealing to his legs in an attempt to escape.

“Think of it as leaving the party a bit early.”

He just needs to hold on as Sandalphon’s human form begins to slow, his bashes to Crowley weakening, squeeze just a little longer and-

“Crowley! I heard crashing, what is going on downstairs?” 

Ice floods Crowley’s veins as Sandalphon’s head whips around to the sound of Aziraphale’s voice. Lightning sparks up along Sandalphon’s entire body arcing over into Crowley’s locking every muscle right up.

_No._

“Aziraphale get out of there!” He roars just as Sandalphon’s head slams back into Crowley, the cracking of his nose sounding like a gunshot and soon blood is gushing down his face soaking his shirt. In his slackened grip Sandalphon breaks free and throws Crowley across Aziraphale’s desk before taking off up the stairs.

Crowley flings himself back to the ground and takes after him, legs protesting and eyes watering from his now broken nose.

He is faster, longer-limbed, catching Sandalphon right at the bedroom door and driving his foot into the backs of Sandalphon’s knees sends them both tumbling right into the door.

Crowley feels two hands come up to squeeze his throat and before it fully cuts his air supply he chokes out.

“Aziraphale, he’s here!”

Sandalphon bucks up under Crowley and throws him off before grabbing his shirt and smashing Crowley face first through the door making him black out for a moment.

He distantly hears Aziraphale screaming his name. Snapping back, with a focused thought Crowley throws a barrier over the bed, ignoring how his mate’s agonised shouting reverbs through his mind.

Crowley whirls around to catch Sandalphon’s eyes, suppressing a shudder at how docile they were in contrast to the brutality of his hands.

_‘That can’t be normal.’_

Before he can even blink Sandalphon throws him back to the ground and _stomps_ into Crowley’s rib cage.

“Crowley!”

Blood spurts from behind his teeth into Sandalphon’s face, shattered ribs sluggishly expanding as he fights for breath. Sandalphon drops all his weight atop him, sinking his strong hands into Crowley’s neck, squeezing.

“How interesting.” Comes Sandalphon murmuring in Crowley’s ear. “Unrefined, however.”

 _‘Is that all he has to say?’_ Crowley thinks, wildly kicking underneath Sandalphon for purchase on the slippery floor, clawing at the vice grip as blood fills his chest. He can hear Aziraphale’s anguished screaming, hands slamming against the barrier his fading power struggles to hold up.

 _Stay up protect_ _him please_ –

Two hands squeeze tighter, then ten seem to extend from the Archangel and grip Crowley. White hot lightning courses through his bones arcing along his joints and he tries to scream from under Sandalphon’s hands, his occult form about to tear from the other dimension-

“ _Crowley!_ ”

Aziraphale’s legs protest as he hauls himself from the bed towards Crowley, calling his wings out with enough force to knock Sandalphon off of a weakening Crowley. Faster than a cobra Crowley is moving again, fangs bared about to bite into the Archangel’s throat when a crack of lightning strikes and nothing but air meets the snap of his jaw. Drained, Aziraphale collapses on the hard floor, groaning in pain and an overexertion beyond the physical realm. Golden eyes flit to him from across the bedroom floor as Crowley tries to push himself up, blood dripping from his lips.

“Aziraphale, you alright?” Crowley rasps, dazed. He is about to answer when a thousand glowing hands reach through the floorboards, climbing his legs, wrapping tight around him. Aziraphale looks up at Crowley, willing every ounce of love he can through their bond before he casts his celestial form over himself.

Crowley’s eyes widen and he lunges towards him just as Aziraphale is pulled down. 

The last thing Aziraphale hears is Crowley roaring his name loud enough to shatter all the windows in Soho London, and then he’s gone.

Aziraphale awakens to what seems to be the surface of the sun, or something close to it. He can feel it burning hot against him, too bright for him to see more than just white. To his left and right is the cold dark of space.

 _‘Welcome to, principality.’_ Sandalphon’s true voice echoes through him, hollow and attention catching.

A thousand hands grip Aziraphale, holding him in place before this star, a white dwarf it seems like, one far from Earth and Crowley. Carefully, Aziraphale turns to look behind him at Sandalphon, and had this form breath it would have stopped. Sandalphon’s true form is typically witnessed just by those he has been brought to execute. Many that have watched from afar consider it to be one of the most beautiful sights to behold. An Archangel of pure light with a wingspan akin to the vast nebula of space, designed solely to be God’s weapon of choice upon the earth. If other angels understood anything about the arts, they would have considered it poetry. 

Aziraphale, an angel that actually understands the arts, considers it the worst sort of horror.

Compared to the Archangels, the true, celestial form of principalities more closely resembles humanity in both size and form. Aziraphale’s own wingspan as a result is considered downright modest amongst his heavenly peers. The lower ranks needed the ability to blend in much more smoothly without having to exert more power than they had, so why not start them at a form not too far from human?

Such is the nature of angelic rankings in both physical and supernatural power as well. Meaning that Sandalphon’s grip was immovable, no matter how Aziraphale’s celestial form flickered and resisted.

Behind him, Aziraphale can almost feel the shift in intent as the Archangel angles them both closer towards the white dwarf Sandalphon had made them appear before.

 _‘Crowley, where are you?’_ Aziraphale mourns out into the loneliness of space, feeling their bond thrum with the question only to fade when there is no response.

Sandalphon is mute as a witness to Aziraphale’s pleas. Those many arms wringing Aziraphale’s wings in his grip, while Sandalphon seemingly pondered his next move. Before them, the star flares up, exploding in molten splendor, and he wonders if Crowley helped make this one, too.

 _‘I greatly enjoyed our earlier collaboration on this fine work,’_ Sandalphon speaks, his reverb sends a passing comet several thousand miles from them off course.

_‘However, there exists a higher purpose, and it will conclude with your inevitable smite.’_

Aziraphale can only stare into the burning star before him, mesmerised by the movement of light across its surface. There is no escape now from his discorporation back to Heaven, back to their control and his inevitable destruction. He closes his eyes, and calls out into space one last time, hoping.

Suddenly, he feels it. A whisper upon his cheek.

_‘Aziraphale.’_

It is as though something denser than Alpha Centauri itself was moving towards them. Aziraphale watches the white dwarf distort with the movement of an enormous figure blotting its light out. Nothing shines through as it slid across their vision. Then, from the depths of that impossible darkness, Aziraphale felt a brush of _mate_ upon the contours of his mind and his spirit sings.

_‘Crowley?’_

Sandalphon’s grip on his wings tightens, and the Archangel flies back from the star’s corona away from the mass, unintentionally granting Aziraphale a better view. Aziraphale has never seen Crowley’s occult form before, the demon keeping it tight under obscurity to the point Aziraphale could not think of Crowley without seeing a pair of golden eyes and strong hands, a soft mouth and cool body. A part of Aziraphale always knew Crowley’s form was a shadow of his power, but never would he have guessed his former self to be _seraphic_ in nature.

This, he wondered as Crowley phased and flickered, erasing starlight from sight, was nothing he could have imagined.

Upon the wheel that hung where Crowley’s head would usually be, as though it had been cut off at the neck by a holy guillotine, eyes were creaking open and the axis began to tick. Four wings of midnight fan out, so dark Aziraphale cannot even see the tips of them while two massive wings remain tightly wrapped around what appears to be a translucent body of long, folded limbs trapping the stars lights years away within them.

 _‘You seek to destroy him,’_ comes a voice from the centre of the mass that is Crowley, both foreign and comforting in its power.

 _‘It is an ordained smite,’_ Sandalphon replies, brighter than the white dwarf, his Aspects floating around him, each one neutral in its countenance, his many arms a stunning vice.

 _‘Smite.’_ Had Crowley a face, Aziraphale would have guessed the demon to be smiling.

Aziraphale turned his head back towards the Archangel, watching hesitation ripple across Sandalphon, but Crowley was already moving.

Cradled within those two now expanding wings, Crowley’s distorted seraphic form unfurled from around so dark a sphere Aziraphale’s spirit could not sense anything beyond it, situated in the gap where his abdomen would be. A darkness Aziraphale could only assume was there by how it twisted and bent Crowley. The wheel of Crowley’s serpentine eyes suddenly ceased to tick along with the deafening roar of the star behind them. Winding up briefly, the wheel started an erratic spiral in the opposite direction, his crown wings fluttering from the force generated.

Even in his sacrosanct form, Crowley’s sardonic tone rings through Aziraphale’s spirit.

_‘Did you bastards ever wonder why I could stop time?’_

Waves of alarm erupt from the Archangel, his grip on Aziraphale going slack long enough for him to break free. As he beat his wings to get away, Aziraphale catches the pull of something far more powerful than him reaching through space. 

It felt akin to gravitational force, so intense, almost as if it was—

 _‘A black hole_ ,’ Sandalphon whispers, sending the asteroids around them spiraling, a solar flare exploding across the white dwarf.

Crowley shifts, and Aziraphale feels as though every eye upon that whirling axis bores into him.

 _‘Aziraphale, my angel_ ,’ Crowley reached into his spirit, clear as a bell. ‘ _Best if you move very, very far away.’_

There was now a pressure with the potential to completely consume his existence, and yet it was as gentle as the only hands to ever have touched him-

_‘Do not look back.’_

Then he was racing past galaxies, solar systems on a headwind he could never generate himself, a trillion stars blurring into white stripes as he flew. For how long he was flying there was no way of knowing, it felt as though he was suspended in time.

Don’t look back, Crowley had told him. Aziraphale has never listened to Crowley when it matters, however, and pulled his wings out to slow himself down. It takes a great deal of effort to resist that headwind, but eventually he halts somewhere outside of the Sol system, hidden in the darkness a million light years from Pluto, most likely.

_‘Do not look back.’_

Oh, perhaps this is what Lot’s wife must have felt, for Aziraphale could not help but look back, peering through the billion light-year distance to where Crowley - his horrible, beautiful Crowley - was. Where warm mornings in bed, cups of tea pushed into his hands, soft kisses, whispers of love all remained.

He did not turn to salt, but he was frozen in place nonetheless.

Sandalphon knew as an Archangel he was immortal until the Almighty made Her decision to end him.

Perhaps, he should wonder if this was Her decision in motion.

The demon’s wheel of eyes was spinning faster to the point of a mere blur, and then it was advancing upon him, contracting light and distorting as its mass moved through space. Slow, it seemed, but Sandalphon could not understand why. Tension rippled through his form, and Sandalphon stretched his wings out to match in length the demon’s midnight ones, billowing them at the demon with the force of a cosmic storm. He watched the demon reel back, its enormous primary wings once again shielding that carcass it called an occult form, a true distortion of Her original design for Heaven’s seraphim.

Time to finish. A smite is a smite at this point.

Absently Sandalphon hummed a low melody, powerful enough to ripple the star’s molten surface as they traded blows. And yet for some reason it sounded flat here in the dark expanse of space, both supernatural beings caught in the light of this white dwarf.

Surely even demons know divine wrath is impossible to avoid. If not, this one will find out soon enough.

Sandalphon opened his nebulous arms, satisfied at the way the demon slides erratically across his vision in a futile attempt to dodge the coming blow. This has always been his favourite way to unleash judgment, by the sheer force of a thousand hands coming together in prayer. He brings his hands down in front of him, watching in confusion as they seem to slow, never managing to touch. He presses harder, only sparks flickering in the space between them. Not close enough.

There is a sudden darkness blocking the warmth of the white dwarf, Sandalphon looks up to see all six black wings spread wide open before him, and he is staring into–

Too close.

Black holes are a rather courteous astronomical phenomenon. They don’t move all that much, preferring to stay fixed in one place and let the rest of the universe come to it. Very polite and all. As a nice warning feature, black holes even have a particular threshold they provide you with before it is too late to escape a density committed to ending your place in the universe.

This particular black hole, however, is attached to a demon that really does not care about warnings or letting anything escape. 

Sandalphon could feel the ominous pull, an insidious tug against his being as the only warning he is going to get. Turning immediately, he beat all six of his wings to light speed in an attempt to escape the gravitational force he was now under. Frantically they conjured a cosmic storm powerful enough to knock the star off its axis and yet he barely moved.

 _‘You’re an Archangel. Made of light and all, aren’t you?’_ He feels a malicious voice slithering into his spirit, oozing like ichor across his very existence.

Fear gripped Sandalphon. Not even the speed of light was fast enough to escape the pressure he was now falling under. At the very edges, his form began to _strrrrreeeeeetttccch._

Those blasphemous seraphic - _demonic_ \- wings crept in around his vision as the demon came closer and he desperately reached past them. A thousand arms, used for a thousand smites, all clawing out to the humming abyss of space for help, for _mercy_ –

_‘What does a black hole absorb?’_

Darkness enclosed him in a crushing embrace, and there was silence.

From this far away, it looked as though Sandalphon had not even moved, and for all Aziraphale could tell Crowley did not even exist.

Aziraphale watches the glint of light that was Sandalphon suddenly wink out of existence, and something in his chest shivers. ‘ _Time dilation,’_ Aziraphale dimly thinks. Undoubtedly Sandalphon vanished long before the vision of it had reached Aziraphale.

He has no idea how long he waits out there, in the cold emptiness of space. Having lost the headwind Crowley sent him on, he was stranded for the meantime, and it would take him decades to make it back to earth.

Then, there is a hesitation creeping up in him, a fear of reaching out that feels unfamiliar, and is magnifying in intensity.

 _‘What in the world?’_ He wonders.

Aziraphale soon realises this is not his own fear, and he reaches out to grasp the tenuous strand of what feels like... a bond.

_‘Crowley? Is that you?’_

There is a hum of pleasure, of relief. Aziraphale beams.

 _‘Aziraphale,’_ Crowley’s voice calls from the recesses of space. 

_‘Let’s go home.’_

Aziraphale allows the gentle pressure of Crowley’s will to flow through his entire being, and he is subsumed by a darkness that feels as comforting as Crowley’s arms around him.

Michael does not look up when the door opens, her eyes have been fixated on the battle map, watching Sandalphon’s figure disappear. She knows what happened, and rewinds the map to watch it all over again.

“I regret to report,” comes a slow, almost shaken voice. “That I was unsuccessful.”

Michael sighs, unable rage against the obvious, and glances up to see Sandalphon flickering. Hm. Discorporation down to the celestial form. There would be a lot of paperwork for this, a call to Top Floor, even.

“It seems we underestimated the principality,” Michael replies coolly, watching the events on the map unfold once more.

Sandalphon shakes his head, the Aspects asynchronous in their circling of him. “Aziraphale was not the cause of this.”

That is a surprise. “Surely not something of Hers?” For the Almighty to choose a principality over one of her Archangels is unthinkable.

Sandalphon only hums for a moment, blurring at the edges.

“The demon that Aziraphale cavorts with,” there is a shudder through Sandalphon, his Aspects sing mournfully, drooping. “Is not what it appears to be.”

Michael looks back at the map, just in time to see movement, noticeable only by the way the other pieces reacted, pulled inward then pushed outward. It was pure darkness moving along the map. Horrific is the only word that crawls up into her mind. Just what has Aziraphale bound himself to, and why does the Almighty still find it unnecessary to step in?

“Wait a moment–” She looks up to see Sandalphon already making his way to the door, hands clasped neatly behind his back. Each of his Aspects turn to face her and she grimaced.

He pauses at the door, glancing over his shoulder with a curl of his lip. “Another time, then.” 

And then the Archangel is shutting the door behind him.

Aziraphale wakes up on an unfamiliar bed. A comfortable one, but an unfamiliar one.

Outside the window he hears birds chirping, the quiet sounds of people out in the streets chatting among one another. Swapped out for his human form again it seems, Aziraphale notes while bringing his hands up, surprised to find his shoulders do not hurt.

He sucks in a deep breath and - _ow_ \- okay that still kind of hurts. Perhaps he will not test his knees just yet, either.

Rolling onto his side with a groan, he winces at the bright sunlight only to find Crowley watching him with unblinking eyes. His long nose is slightly swollen from the blow Sandalphon landed on it, but there is a glow he has never seen before effused along the demon’s body, as if he has been set alight from within. Caught in the sunlight pouring from the windows of this bedroom permeated with warmth, with protection, he looks, he almost looks–

“Finally get our holiday, seems like.” Crowley drawls, shuffling a bit closer and tucking his hands under his right cheek. “Miraculously they even had our reservation open, can you imagine?”

Aziraphale stares, completely ignoring his words. “You were a seraph.”

He at least has the good grace to look mildly embarrassed. Aziraphale finds chagrin a rather attractive look on the demon, something telling him that he will find it attractive for _quite_ a while.

“Never was a good time to bring it up,” Crowley’s voice is hoarse, deep lines etched around his eyes that do nothing for his handsome face, but Aziraphale is captivated none the same. They lay there for a moment watching one another, Crowley’s eyes flickering across the contours of Aziraphale’s soft face until the angel begins to feel self-conscious.

Crowley finally blinks. “Plus, I enjoy being considered ‘some stuffy angel’s mate’ a lot more.” He clearly embellished most of that from his own opinions as opposed to verbatim from others, but Aziraphale lets it slide - it’s the intent that counts. There is so much to talk about, Aziraphale realises, so much between them that needs to be addressed, but for now it will wait. He can only reach out, tucking a stray lock of red hair behind an ever so slightly pointed ear.

A part of him stares, wondering about this fallen seraph that deemed Aziraphale of all creatures worthy of braving the lonely expanse of space to fight an Archangel, of ever being worthy of such love.

Surely, surely there is a limit, throughout all the years they’ve known each other.

‘ _How many times will you save me?’_

Through their bond Crowley plucks the question from his mind, taking it into himself to cradle as though he had been given the greatest gift and Aziraphale’s heart aches. He gasps as the demon moves, breathing harshly against his ear, arms trembling as they enfold Aziraphale in a tight embrace. 

“As many times as needed, angel. I’d do it all for you as many times as needed.” Crowley promises against his temple, each word shuddering with a breadth of emotions Aziraphale can feel threatening to overwhelm them both here in this bedroom. Burning tears pool in his eyes, and he ducks his face to Crowley’s chest letting them soak into the soft shirt there, anchored to a hope that they are finally safe. He can feel Crowley’s power radiating from the other dimension as if to make that hope happen, wings fluttering wide and dark around them both.

Crowley nudges Aziraphale to pull away, golden eyes shining bright with love, before he leans in to give a kiss that Aziraphale swears made time stop in its tracks.

Perhaps, for those two in that peaceful South Downs cottage, it did.


End file.
